ILMC/ LMS, Silverstone - Third Hour Five abreast the battle for fourth place continued between Lahaye, Prost and Belicchi with the OAK Racing #15 and the Rebellion Racing #12 and #13 swapping position several times. 70 laps into the race Pagenaud was still leading the Autosport 6 Hours of Silverstone - but the gap between the Peugeot and the #1 Audi had been reduced to just 14 seconds. Franck Montagny then pitted from the lap next time by, the #8 Peugeot still far behind in 29th overall. More to the front of the race Tommy Erdos made his move on the #40 Race Performance Oreca and moved into third place. At turn 3 the Genoa Racing Oreca FLM 09 of Aldous Mitchell spun and rejoined. At the end of lap 73 Olivier Pla made his third pit stop from third overall - allowing teammate Lahaye to move up into third place. Tracy Krohn made Allan McNish’ race more miserable when his Ferrari tapped the #2 Audi into a spin. Fortunately there was no damage to both cars and they were able to continue - McNish continuing his fight to get back into the top 10. Both leaders came in at the end of lap 79 - the gap 13.029 seconds as they crossed the line. After the first sector the gap after coming out of the pit the gap had gone down to 11.253 seconds. Barry Gates then spun his RLR Msport MG Lola EX265 into turn 3 - losing a few seconds before. Simon Pagenaud lost 3 seconds on his out lap when he got stuck behind Tracy Krohn. The gap reduced to 8.8 seconds, with Marcel Fässler going quicker and closing the gap now. "Car 23 spun and continued at turn 7" showed up on the screens 2 hours and 37 minutes into the race - a rather interesting message as that car is the hybrid Zytek that crashed heavily on Saturday and was already in the back of a transporter before the start of the race. Allan McNish finally handed over the #2 Audi R18 TDI to Tom Kristensen after 2 hours and 39 minutes of racing - with Tracy Krohn spinning his #57 Ferrari 430 at turn 7. Fässler was only 3 seconds behind Pagenaud after 84 laps - and knew he had every chance to fight for the lead soon. Track conditions deteriorated though as the astroturf came loose and large parts were seen flying through the air on the pit straight. As Kristensen unlapped himself he ran over the astroturf - and a large lump disappeared under the #2 Audi and was not seen again. Fässler now had his sights set on the #7 Peugeot and midway through lap 86 the gap was down to 1.889 seconds. Fässler tried to make his move on the Peugeot - but the Swiss driver had to brake as he got stuck behind one of the IMSA Performance Matmut Porsches. Steven Keating spun his Neil Garner Motorsport Oreca FLM 09 #92, just as the Signatech Nissan Oreca 03 Nissan returned to the pit and went backwards into the box again after 2 hours and 49 minutes. At the front in LMP2 Karim Ojjeh had lost some of the lead he had to Dominik Kraihamer, the Austrian slowly reeling the Zytek in - with the gap just 25 seconds. Vernay returned the Signatech car to the track after 5 minutes of work. The Lotus JetAlliance #64 Lotus Evora GTE was still leading the Michelin Green X Challenge after 91 laps had been completed by the race leader - despite being rolled backwards into its pit box and only completing 68 laps. At the halfway point Peugeot Sport Total was leading Audi Sport Team Joest by half a second - Pagenaud now in an Audi sandwich. Hour 3 Summary Petrol P1 was where the close racing was in the early part of this hour, Pla had pulled ahead in #24 in third leaving Moreau in the sister #15 to fend off the two Rebellion cars. Prost took advantage and moved up to fourth. More significantly though, we had some great racing right at the front at the end of the hour. Fassler had made steady inroads into the lead, reducing a 35 second deficit at the start of his stint to nothing. It was refreshing to see that when Kristensen unlapped himself from the leader, with Fassler just five seconds back, #2 continued off into the distance, no silly games to help bring Fassler into contention for the lead, he was capable of doing that all for himself. The recovering #2 and #8 continued to climb through the leaderboard at great pace, having a scrap among themselves at the same time, albeit three laps apart. Luxury Racing still had the upper hand for Ortelli in #59 with a slightly reduced but still healthy lead of around 50 seconds now, although it will be interesting to see how their out of sequence pitstop leaves them in the final hour. IMSA Performance Matmut have built themselves a nice advantage of around 40 seconds after another sterling stint from Armindo. | 
